She did not wait for my reply, turning back to the sink to rinse the porcelain under a thin stream of warm water. I set the silver polish down and adjusted the silver strap of my grandmother’s watch, the metal links clicking softly. My sister had always been the golden child, her successes paraded through this house like trophies, while my long shifts at the county hospital ICU were treated as a quiet eccentricity.
I picked up the cloth again, but the weight of the drive in my pocket felt like a cold stone against my hip, a secret I had no intention of sharing with the woman standing by the sink.
By six o’clock in the evening, the autumn dusk had turned the windows of my small apartment into dark, cold mirrors. The dining table in my apartment was a cheap maple veneer, scratched at the corners from my move six months ago. The window looked out over a narrow alley where the neighbor’s trash bins lining the brick wall were visible. I sat at the dining table with my laptop open, the beige USB drive plugged into the side port.
